Today we’d like to introduce you to Kenneth Schumacher.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I am originally from the suburbs of NYC where I had a former life as a corporate project manager for Pfizer and a hobby of investing in real estate. Throughout all of the side projects I was involved in, I quickly learned that it was good to be curious. I learned to be handy and take on major contracting projects myself. Sure, it took longer, but it was so rewarding!
Since a lot of my family lives local to Dallas, my wife and I would visit a few times a year and decided that it was time for a change. To Texas we went! Moving to the Dallas area changed my life.
Something you need to understand about living in NJ is that the houses are nowhere near as large as they are in Dallas. We now had this big house and had to fill it with furniture….that didn’t exist.
We found a custom furniture company that built only out of Pine (box store grade). My wife liked the concept that we could order custom furniture by picking the size and the stain. I studied the company and became very interested in the concept, but was weary about the quality of the materials being used. I asked my wife to give me one week.
To the garage I went to build my first table. It came out great! I was hooked! I built a few other pieces and our house began to turn into a home. It was really neat to build furniture specific sizes based on each room’s requirements. Hmmmm…Maybe we should try to sell some of my work…
I decided to put one table on Craigslist and within four hours, I received about five inquiries! I ended up building five tables and selling them that week. Wow, we are on to something here.
After a while, I ran into a problem – my garage was too small. So in 2012, I opened my first shop.
There have been so many lessons learned over the past six years. And the success was not come by alone. Not even close. If it wasn’t for my amazing support system, things would have never gotten to this level. First, I had my wife’s patience. Suzanne was super supportive and understanding when I really didn’t make much money in the first few months. My father, Doc and my Uncle Lee were integral to my success. They to this day continue to help support our business. My mother (Cheryl) “runs the numbers” and is our accountant.
Now we have about eight employees that help run our business. Rachelle Schumacher is our front office manager. She helps with customer inquiries, finance and social media. Bill Lecher helps in the shop – he is an amazing finisher and is super dedicated to the success of our business. Jamie Riney is an amazing craftsman. As the shop foreman, has a wealth of knowledge and does an amazing job with our building requirements.
Our goal this year is to build a new shop and hire many more employees as our business continues to grow.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has never been a smooth road, and I prefer things that way. Let me explain…
Same old…
When KSW first started as a business, we rarely built anything beyond simple farmhouse and trestle designs. Sure, they would turn out great and be custom made by adjusting the height, length, width, color…but the product itself rarely changed. We were challenged in the sense that we were busy, but our shop began to feel a tad like a production facility. I also started to notice that the market was beginning to produce a bounty of DIYers that can build these types of tables. As a business owner, I believe that is important to offer a unique product. As we would grow, our customers would challenge us with new designs and we started to accept those challenges. Time to show the world what we can do!
Creation:
I started to reach out to local designers in Dallas as well as in Los Angeles and NYC. As I networked, I would ask about the types of hardwood furniture that their clients were interested in. Around the same time, I became more interested in exotic hardwood from around the world, live edge design and reclaimed hardwood that had a story behind it.
The universe provides…We began to build unique pieces for restaurants, hotels, stores and high-end apartment buildings. We began to work with CAD engineers, CNC technicians and Plasma Cutters to incorporate custom metal designs and accents to our projects. Our commercial clients began to boom with companies like AT&T, The WinStar Casino, Solera, Hilton Hotels, the Star in Frisco, Rogers O’brien, Rouge Tomate NYC, among others.
Our residential base continued its upward trend. We encourage our customers to be adventurous in their choices. Each project is a challenge, but it keeps our team sharp and hungry for the next amazing creation.
As our portfolio grows, our customers can take pieces and parts from previous designs to create their own one-of-a-kind project. By the way, this process never gets old!
Space:
We recently finished a 150-desk project for Solera while keeping up with our normal busy building schedule. While our shop is much larger than a garage, sometimes, we run out of room to build. In 2018, we expect to have a shop that is twice its current size. We are looking to buy land and actually build a shop so that we can customize it to our needs.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about KS WoodCraft – what should we know?
KS WoodCraft is an award-winning Custom Hardwood Furniture Company. We cater to both commercial and residential clients locally and across the US. We have a few unique specialties and characteristics:
Our Approach:
First and foremost, our goal is to build a completely customized piece of furniture for our client. We expect the piece to appear as though the room was built around it. We start with a “form follows function” approach. What is its purpose? How big (or small) does it need to be? If it is a table, how many should it seat? Are there obstructions that we need to consider? Once that is documented, the fun begins – the aesthetics. We begin to tap into our clients’ creative side. What is their vision? What shape to they want the piece to be? What materials are we going to use? Then we pair them with a beautiful hardwood that works great in their home or place of business. In some cases we will render drawings to allow our clients to see the furniture before it is built. Scope is important to us – we always try to set expectations as clearly as possible.
Our Style:
We obviously love to be unique. Box stores definitely set the trend, but they also are limited in choice since these production companies are scaled to build in multiples. We are custom and offer what the big stores cannot. We can take a client with a certain taste and usually whip up something that really captures their style and vision even if it starts with a variation of something they saw in a catalog.
Our Product:
We love to use different species of hardwood including Walnut, Rosewood, Ebony, Teak, Oak, Alder, Zebra Wood, Padauk, Limba, Sapele, Lyptus….ok I can go on all day, but I won’t. Point is, if we haven’t worked with it…we want to.
One of my favorite things to do is talking with mill workers throughout the country and asking them what their favorite hardwood is and why. That usually leads to us bringing something new into our shop.
OK, now contrast that with our love of Reclaimed Harwood. We actually have salvaged hardwood from a Cotton Mill that still exists in our town (McKinney). We were shooting our video and came upon a beautiful heap of lumber waiting to be repurposed. The rest was history.
We also build with Boxcar wood that is pulled from trains that operated and traveled the country from the 1880’s to the 1920’s. It is so cool to see pieces of history being put into our client’s homes.
We have French Oak that was salvaged from a schoolhouse built in the 1500s! Yes, 16th century hardwood!
We have Italian White Oak that was salvaged from Venice. These boards were formerly pilings that resided in the canals for centuries.
Our Vision
Our Vision is to continue to work with designers, architects, restaurant developers, home owners and contractors that have a passion to create a piece(s) of hardwood furniture into their space.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Our passion
Our drive
Our creativity
Our knowledge
Our ability to communicate
Our ability to adapt to our clients’ needs
Our attention to detail
Our ability to source unique materials
Our ability to work with other fabricators
Our ability to say no to a project
Contact Info:
- Address: KS WoodCraft
1513 S Tennessee St
Suite 117
McKinney, TX 75069 - Website: www.kswoodcraft.com
- Phone: 469-734-0144
- Email: info@kswoodcraft.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ks_woodcraft/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kswoodcraft
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/ks-woodcraft-mckinney-2
- Other: https://www.houzz.com/pro/kswoodcraft/ks-woodcraft
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